Dear Wanda Nara, please stop talking

Just as it seemed that the Mauro Icardi transfer story had been laid to bed, Wanda Nara decided to drag it up yet again. She gave interviews to Qui Studio a Voi Stadio and RTL 102.5 radio in which she brought up interest from Juventus, Napoli, and Atletico Madrid in Icardi, while also talking about how he wants to stay at the club. Piero Ausilio already tried to end this story and insist that these conversations happen in private but since Mrs. Nara wants to do this publicly, I've decided to jump into this little squabble myself. So here is an open letter to Wanda Nara, with an afterword directed towards Icardi.

Dear Wanda,

What are you doing? I'm not being sarcastic or ironic or anything like that. I'm genuinely serious, what are you doing? Why are you insisting on starting fires where there are none? Why are you pushing your client out the door while at the same time saying he wants to stay? These contradictions are at best confusing and at worst a foolishly open attempt to play hardball to get your husband a larger paycheck.

You say that the wages Inter offered Icardi with his new contract are laughable. The 23 year old makes €3.2m a season and is one of the highest paid players in the squad. Does he deserve a pay-raise? Probably considering the fact that Edin-can't-score-to-save-his-freaking-life-Dzeko earns €4.5m a year but Mauro just signed a new contract last year. The new owners and their cash has just arrived. You talk about broken promises but you haven't given the club time to adjust to its new setup before you're asking for more money. Just have some patience, wait for the club to get itself situated and then once things have calmed down then have this discussion you were promised. Icardi is highly valued at the club but now is not the time for this conversation.

Part of me wants to be optimistic, to think that you are posturing so aggressively because you want to prove yourself. A lot of super-agents would love to have Icardi as their client but he chose you, his wife. I'm sure there are a lot of people who think you don't deserve the job, and so you are acting in such a combative fashion because you want to show everybody that you can be his agent, that you deserve to be the one negotiating for your husband. I'm all for that, but if that is the case, you're going about this in the wrong way. Instead of coming off as strong you're coming off as disruptive and quarrelsome. Instead of coming off as a person who is willing to fight for a client to the best of your abilities you're coming off as a person who runs to the media when you don't get what you want and will try to cause as much trouble as possible to win. How many clubs are going to be willing to put up with that?

The other option, the one I would prefer not to believe, is that both you and Icardi (or even just you) have decided to take advantage of the club's new investment money and Icardi's popularity to strong-arm the club into a new contract. We both know Icardi is hugely popular and loved in Milan, but this saga is going to start to leave a sour taste in the mouths of fans. A captain is supposed to lead his teammates and show them how to act, this is not how a captain gets things done.

I'm curious as to what your endgame is here. Your frequent discussions with the media is surely not making Inter's management pleased with you (especially after Ausilio specifically asked that these types of conversations happen in private with the club). If Inter backs down and gives him the type of wages that you're demanding, what kind of image would the club be projecting? That a player can get what he wants if his agent has a temper tantrum in front of some microphones? Your actions are making the club want to play hardball, and there could come a point where they get sick of this and decide to cut their losses with the both of you. Your talk about how Icardi wants to stay seems to suggest that you don't want that to happen, which is why I think you hope that the club values Icardi and their fan's happiness enough to cave to your demands. That might have worked before and it might still, but your statements and your aggression are starting to stick in the fans' minds enough that if a sale goes down, you very well could be the one who takes the wrath of the fans rather than the club.

So please, end this before it goes too far. Please for your sake, for your husband's sake, for the club's sake, for the fan's sake, stop talking.

An tired interista,

Baraka

P.S. Mauro Icardi, if you are reading this I urge you to step in at this point. You need to make some public comments to either resolve this situation or to pick a side and stand by it in this confrontation. I understand that it could be awkward but personally I would rather see awkward moments instead of burned bridges. The longer this continues the worse things will get, and even though there were some reports that said you met with the club and disavowed your agent's statements as time goes by fans will start to think that you are working with her to grab as much money as you can. I do not want to tell you to control your wife because that's sexist as hell. I do want to tell you to control your agent. If you cannot do one without the other that's a good lesson in why the two roles shouldn't mix.